Please look at my budget

[Savingsspree]

I'm a single mother with two young children. I work full time and earn around 35k I'm a joint tenant with my ex partner and we own the home outright.
Due to DV I am no longer communicative with expartner.
Recently, I found out that WTC had been overpaying and they have removed all support. My monthly income is 2k. After bills, I'm struggling to keep my head above water.
If I sell, I'd need his consent and probably need to get a mortgage. I have bad credit
My biggest outgoings are childcare totalling around 800pcm
my car 300 pm
Gas and elec 120
Petrol 100
Car iinsurance45
Gymnastics for the kids 60
Tv license 14
Rd tax 20
Car insurance 44
Broadband 50
Phone 20
Water 40
cCouncil ttax
250
2 credit cards 500pcm

Thre credit cards have a total of 7k debt

I'm all over the place. I'm a mess and yet in a much better position than most.gt

How old are the kids? Are you claiming tax free childcare? When you get paid, are you paying a set amount to your credit cards first (ie not waiting til the end of the month and just paying off whatever's left)?

1. Wtc won’t cease for overpayment. You agree how much to pay back via deduction

1. Childcare costs are… odd. A state school charging £21 per day per child for breakfast and after school club?

1. How did you come to own your property outright?

Thanks fall, I'll look this up, I haven't understood what these vouchers are tbh.
Breakfast club 6 pound *2
After school club 15 pound *2
I'm a teacher, not minimum wage but can never offer to pick up another child for a favour.

And wtc pay 85% of childcare costs

The house was a gift, don't want tob say anymore as I feel pretty exposed in the post
Wtc stated I had an overpayment and stopped all income. I remembervthe call because I practically begged. Flat out no.
I pay about 250 pcm on the cards but there comes a point in the month where I need to spend on something and I'll take it over the limit, thereby occuring a late charge a never actually paying off the debt. Its stupid I know. But this is where the struggle is.

Do you get child benefit?

Was the overpayment their fault or had you miss reported?

They don’t give a decision over the phone. It’s referred to a decision maker.

Did they do this?

And if it is completely nullifying your benefits, and it’s an overpayment by £2k
It won’t be too long at all before it’s paid off entirely

You can still claim 85% childcare contribution. Presumably you are?

Make sure you claim your tax free childcare. Google hmrc tax free childcare and register each child. You will then only need to pay in 80% of the childcare costs and the government top up to make 100%. If your childcare is £42 a day you will only need to pay about £33 per day. But make sure the school are set up to receive the tax free childcare and if they are then you need their reference number to set the payments up.

You must be paying pension OP for your income to only be 2k on that salary. If you stopped that for now then with an income of 35K, your take home should be around 2400 with child benefit too. It's not ideal but perhaps as good as it gets right now? Your debt is high so I guess an alternative might be to try and re-mortgage to cover that debt? Then pay it back over a much longer period and maybe also pay off your expensive car (minimum mortgage you can often get is 25K). How long until your kids don't need so much childcare?

What exactly do you mean by bad credit? If you can't move the credit cards to 0% deals, it could be worth taking out a small mortgage, paying off the credit cards and car finance and regarding this as a new start and vow for no more credit/debt going forward, or else you could end up with a mortgage and debt, which is a downward spiral to disaster. There are adverse credit mortgages where the interest rate isn't that bad, especially if its a low LTV.

Are you using an overdraft? Try not to do that, the interest rate is extortionate. Far better to put the spend on a credit card, and pay off in full every month without fail. But this also has to be a card that's not carrying a balance or else you will pay interest.

Then you probably need to look at your budget to cut costs (you could half your broadband costs for a start) and make sure you fully account for annual and irregular spends that will come up such as insurance, white goods replacement, car repairs, servicing and MOT, Christmas etc. Also saving for your next car and any other big spends like home improvements, so you don't have to borrow to pay for these.

Will the childcare fees drop soon? £35k pa with no mortgage or a small mortgage if you take one out now should be manageable.

Have a look at the Moneysaving Expert money makeover and do everything that's relevant. Also get the weekly email for ongoing tips. Eg at the moment, a lot of banks are offering £100 to £150 of free money for switching to them.

www.moneysavingexpert.com/family/money-help/

I’d speak to a mortgage advisor and see about getting a mortgage. You must have a decent amount of equity. You say ex partner so I assume not married?

I’d ditch the ridiculously expensive car and get another HP around the £100-150pm benchmark.

Your broadband is too high. £20pm will give you sufficient bandwidth.

Don’t understand how you’re paying £500pm on credit cards of £7k. If you’re paying more than the minimum I’d stop that until you get your WTC Childcare element back. I’d also stop pension payments for that period too.

What kind of bad credit do you have? Missed payments? CCJs? Bankruptcy?

Thankyou all.

I can't ask irl and this has been really helpful.
Trying to look up getting a mortgage
Tax free childcare too
As long as it doesn't involve the ex, then yes a fresh start is definitely needed
I can't seem to get a loan, using all the sites to check my credit, no offers.
I think bad credit for me includes missed cc payments no ccjs or bankruptcy
It's a start. Thanks again.

Have a look on debt camel about complaining about your credit cards.

debtcamel.co.uk/refunds-catalogue-credit-card/

I complained to capital one (about unaffordable credit limit increases) and got £2k in interest and fees refunded. Takes a couple months, but worth a try.

Are you claiming Child Benefit?
Is your lodger there full time? Is not and they are paying Council Tax elsewhere you can still claim your single person discount.
Agree with all PP. Your childcare costs are extortionate. Is there any way you can reduce these?

Wow, your council tax is high....sadly not something you can control.

£300 on a car is ridiculous.

Why do people spend so much on mobile phones too? I have a sim only deal which is less than £10 a month

Childcare costs are… odd. A state school charging £21 per day per child for breakfast and after school club?

My DC goes to a state school and it cost this much

Good luck op I know it's tough.

You don't mention your food bill, not sure if you could cut on that? Would a childminder be feasible? Might be cheaper than breakfast club?

As an aside the childcare costs are absolutely ridiculous. Mind boggling. More shafting of women where it hurts.

Sorry.

Get rid of TV licence and stop watching live TV. Just use Netflix or youtube

Your car Insurance sounds high. Mine is half that on a 2.0 decent branded car. Broadband also twice what I pay.

You own your home. If you were to sell it, would your ex get anything from the sale? If not, then are there other properties in the area which are smaller and lower cost?

I would focus on your biggest costs:

• childcare
• council tax (thus the question about downsizing the home)

Check with Breakfast Club / After School Club about if they can accept payment via Tax Free Childcare. TFC cannot be used with Universal Credit or WTC, but it sounds like you are not claiming either of those at the moment, so may be eligible for TFC.

Make a list of when current contracts end for things like mobile, broadband, insurance. Shop around about 6 weeks before they are due to renew to see if you can get a better deal.

Have you applied for universal credit? They pay up to 85% of childcare costs depending on your income. I think you would be eligible for some help from them.

Can you contact a debt help charity abourt your credit cards? As long as you have that £500 a month going out you are never going to get ahead.

@Savingsspree re: the mortgage. If you own the property with your ex still they would need to be party to the mortgage and whilst income would be taken into account for affordability so would the household expenses for them

You need to claim Universal Credit, if you can reclaim your childcare costs you would probably get in the region of £150 per week in UC.

Use a benefit calculator such as Entitled To - www.entitledto.co.uk/benefits-calculator/Intro/Home?cid=08bb0f32-fb7e-4aa0-b374-86aa1c05184d to put your income/expenditure in and it will tell you if you have any entitlement.

Also may be worth finding out if you are eligible for 'breathing space' with your debts, you need to speak to a debt charity for help with this. Even if you can't have that they could try to negotiate a freeze on interest and charges for a while to help you get back on top of things. They would also negotiate a manageable payment plan with your creditors.

Also, you said you were a joint tenant with your ex, are you happy with this? You can change it to tenants in common via the Land Registry if you don't want this to continue, you don't need a solicitor to do this.